


In All The Ways It Does

by plant_momma_19



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 23:42:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plant_momma_19/pseuds/plant_momma_19
Summary: “Not this time,” is the quiet answer, and god, his head really hurts, but he’s fine in all the ways it doesn’t matter and Bones is a doctor in all the ways it does





	In All The Ways It Does

Eight and he falls down the stairs, tumbles to the bottom and lands with an oomph that has his bones rumbling in protest. His muscles ache something fierce and his head feels wet to the touch, but he doesn’t cry—he’s in pain and his body is telling him this, but he sits there with sharp clarity and takes it all in stride. Catalogue his wounds, cauterize the split skin, reconnect nerves until he’s able to look up and not want to vomit onto the wooden floor. His mom is sleeping upstairs and Frank is who-knows-where, which leaves Sam to help him, but he doesn’t want to bother his brother; so he stands up, grimaces because his legs are jelly and his stomach threatens to spill, but he makes it to an upright position. He wobbles on unsteady feet to the couch and collapses on the cushions, and he doesn’t remember falling asleep but he must have because Winona’s panicked face blurs in his eyes when he opens them, and he’s stained the couch with his blood.

“Jim, what happened?” she asks frantically, her hands soft against his face as she checks for more damage, and he just smiles a tearless smile and says, “I fell down the stairs, but I didn’t cry,” and Frank would be so, so proud.

Eight and he makes his mother sad, makes her hold him against her chest until she knows he’s still breathing, scooped up in arms that are familiar and yet so, so distant.

-

It wasn’t the fall that made him weep, in retrospect, it was the way he was held for the first time in over six months because his mother had been out in space, and he could feel his heartbreak in ways the stairs could never accomplish. See, she doesn’t hug him too much after that, because he’s nine then ten and she’s out on leave while Frank drives a wedge between him and Sam. At the time, he wants to scream, but he settles with accidentally blowing up the toaster and ruining some of Frank’s old records that he kept hidden in a taped-up box in his closet. It earns him scorching words that fester beneath his skin and build up an armor that protects him when he’s thirteen and slams the pedal and throws himself off the cliff; it protects him when Frank says, “You really did it this time, kid,” and it protects him when words turn to fists and he sits in his room with a split lip.   
He laughs as Sam spits out, “I’m leaving, damn it Jim,” and clutches dry-eyed at his brother’s suitcase.

“You can’t leave,” he states.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” and it shoves a knife deep into his ribs and each step Sam takes towards the door drags it up, up, up and when he’s gone, when the door is slammed shut and his lip is still split, Jim thinks that should they cut open his dead body, they’ll find nothing but broken bones turned to dust with a bleeding heart. 

He tapes himself up, tries to staunch the blood, but it spills out and stains the hardwood floor and the couch and Sam’s bed that he sleeps in for three days straight.

-

Pike says, “I dare you to do better,” and something peels away from his chest like old glue that’s become worn down, drifting to the floor while he stares into a hurricane that will either kill him or toss him into something better than sleeping with what-ifs and never-will-be's.

-

Thirteen and he falls to the ground while people are slaughtered one by one; thirteen and he grows up, flees from the scene and drags twelve children with him, and they’re not soldiers but they’re fighting a war.

-

Nineteen and Jim finds himself on unfamiliar couches and buried in soft sheets on beds that reek of sex and sweat and alcohol. He loses himself in the pleasure and the adrenaline that comes with bar fights at two in the morning; he picks up the willing and ditches his identity somewhere between Iowa and nameless cities, drowns in vodka shots and martinis and beer that tastes like shit but does the trick. His record follows him with sharp claws and snappish teeth that dig holes in his skin and draw blood from shallow surfaces. Nineteen and she tells him, “I love you, Jim,” and he flees her apartment so fast that he ends up on the other side of the city, vomiting up his name, shots, beers, sex, until he’s red, raw and bleeding with nothing to heal the wounds. It’s bitter on his tongue, tasting like stairs and quarries and red cars that vibrate under his skin.

“Look at me now, mom,” he says to the stars above him, and he wonders if she hears him from where she is, wonders why she clings to the misery that keeps her company that she gave to her youngest son.

-

He searches for an answer in the spit-blood that drips off his chin while his nose tries to straighten itself out; he hastily reapplies tape over and over again, mindless in the need to keep himself from falling apart, mixing sweat and sex with whoever has a pretty face and a spark in their eyes. It drains him until he’s left outside of his own apartment, digging for his keys in his pocket. The door opens with a faint click and he’s grateful for old style places, really, because relocking the door is something like control. The couch welcomes him with open arms and faded blankets; he throws himself on it, stains it with drying blood and a splitting headache, and by the time morning peeks through the curtains, he’s already swallowed four aspirin washed down with warm beer. He sleeps, dreams of supernovas and giant ships crackling through time; of a man who is not himself, exploring a universe that doesn’t exist, and he wakes sweat-soaked and aching.

Nineteen and the tape is weakening; nineteen and his ribs shift just a bit more, wilting flowers and dying crops poisoning his lungs.

-

His demons chase him until Pike says, “I dare you to do better,” and then he picks himself up and throws himself at the sky, screaming take me take me take me! He’s bloodied and bruised when he sits and a man scowls at him with a flask bleeding alcohol into his bloodstream; Jim appreciates a good drink and they hatch something like friendship, something Jim hasn’t known since wastelands and hastily buried children with ghosts in their eyes and rocks in their hearts. He hears, “—all I’ve got left are my bones,” and that’s good, that’s great, because all he’s got is a soul going nowhere.

So they land and he thinks maybe he wants to build instead of dissect, from the ground up and towards the sky he longs to touch.

“All I’ve got left,” he says, “are my bones,” and that’s good, that’s great, because Jim’s skeletons are locked away in forgotten closets.

-

The first time it happens, he’s half-drunk and sleep deprived, knocking on a door that might be his but probably isn’t.

“Jesus Christ,” Bones says, and Jim laughs because that doesn’t suit him in the slightest—his hair is much better, even dried with the blood from his temple, and he doesn’t do miracles. “Do you realize what time it is?”

Because it’s three in the morning and he and Bones are something like friends, maybe, and he’s got a few bruises and lacerations on his skin from broken beer bottles, but he’s fine in all the ways it doesn’t matter and Bones is a doctor in all the ways it does. Because it’s three in the morning and Jim is in more pain than he was two minutes ago and the lights are stabbing daggers in the base of his skull, and this was the first place he thought to go to, even if he’s only been here once and he’s not quite sober. So he leans against the doorframe and grins with everything he has, says, “the city never sleeps,” and when Bones replies, “clearly neither do you,” something inside of him snaps and he pushes his way inside.

“Sit on the couch,” Bones snaps out, followed by, “lights, fifty percent.”

“It can wait until morning.”

But this isn’t how it goes and he laughs, laughs until his heart aches with longing; laughs while he flings himself on Bones’ bed and buries his nose in the blankets, laughs until his eyes are wet and everything grows darker and darker. He hears Bones mutter something about a concussion and suddenly he’s eight, falling asleep on the couch with rumbling bones; but this time, this time someone takes care of him, because he can hear the whirr of something like a machine and a pricking sensation in his neck.

“Thanks,” he tries, but it comes out as, “nnks,” and he sleeps to the sound of soft sighing.

-

Jim says, “It can wait until morning,” but what he means is, “I’m sorry,” and Bones hears that as, “I have nowhere else to go and you’re my favorite,” and really, that’s the raw taste of truth, and it’ll always be as bitter as pure vodka on a Thursday night.

-

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“It was an exercise, I was sober,” but the underlying this time is too loud for either of them to ignore. The suture stings and the coffee burns his throat, but he’s suffered much worse and the San Fran moon is stark white against the navy rug of the dorm room. He’d like to call it an experiment, starting a fight with Cupcake a second time around, but Bones calls it an exercise in futility and stupidity and he can’t quite argue with that logic. So he waits for the doctor to finish and declare him fit for more stupidity, but all that comes is a ringing silence that deafens him. He feels the need to fill it with pointlessness but it isn’t worth it this time and he settles with leaning against the back of the couch and staring up at the ceiling. There are an infinite numbers of stars in the sky and only a thousand and twelve ripples in the pseudo-sky above him.

“There are an infinite number of stars in the sky and only a thousand and twelve ripples in your ceiling,” he mutters. Bones sits stunned for three seconds before he says, “You counted?”

“I have to do something while you’re stitching me up like the twenty-first century. What did you expect?”

“I don’t know, Jim,” Bones replies, shaking his head. “I never do when it comes to you.”

The words are spoken so quietly and Jim knows he wasn’t supposed to hear, but he did, and his ribs ache through the patches when he falls asleep in Bones’ bed.

-

She tells him, “I love you, Jim,” and he flees to the dorm on the other side of campus, barges in and causes textbooks to fall off the desk, and he vomits up regrets and quarries and blood.

Bones, Bones, always Bones says above a whisper with his hand on Jim’s back, “I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyway,” but what he means is, “I’m going to let you stay,” and Jim hears that as, “I know you,” and really, that’s the raw taste of truth, and it’ll always be as bitter as the day he lost his soldiers.

-

Pike says, “I dare you to do better,” and Jim falls in love with the stars.

-

Four in the afternoon and he tastes ash and dust on his tongue, can’t breathe through his mouth or his nose; he grasps at his throat as if it’ll release whatever’s lodging itself in his airways, but all it does is leave bloody fingerprints on his skin. He forgets about the physics book on his lap and startles Bones out of his reading, claws at the coffee table, desperately searches for a way out—but all he sees is death, surrounding him in waves, washing away with those he couldn’t save in quick-dug graves on silver pebbles on their eyelids. He tastes ash and dust and watches four thousand fall before him, burns the lists he finds, stares at the man responsible and he’s thirteen, thirteen and dying, thirteen and leading children in a war that isn’t quite a war, thirteen and starving and alone and failing and they’re late, no one is coming to save him—

“Jim,” he hears, a lullaby from ancient days that his mother used to sing when he was four and the storm outside was raging and shaking the hinges of the house. “Jim,” he hears, calling him back to sun-stained floors and the scent of brewing coffee.

“Fuck,” he responds, because at least it’s something and he doesn’t want to explain this, doesn’t know how, can’t get the taste of ash and dust off his tongue with the sweltering heat that burns to his bones. He’s clammy and sweating and laying on his back; the rug is sharp against his shoulder blades and the curtains sway a bit in the breeze from outside.

(It reminds him of Iowa and Sam)

Time passes indefinitely until he’s ready to speak, and when he opens his mouth, Bones shakes his head and helps him on unsteady feet.

“Lay down,” and Jim falls in love with the cool sheets he falls on like he falls in love with the stars. He tries to speak again and this time Bones lets him, sits on the edge of the bed and watches him with steady eyes, and it comes out choked and filtered.

“I was thirteen,” and that’s the punchline, isn’t it? He failed, he failed the moment he dug the first grave. “I was thirteen, Bones, and I couldn’t save them.”

He sleeps and dreams of thick grass with bushels of bright flowers and wakes to the sound of Bones snoring soundly beside him.

He flees.

-

Jim has always been good at avoiding the important shit and this is no different. He doesn’t sleep, alternates his time between studying and drowning in scattered bars, and exams are too close for anything to be fixed anyway. He’s listless when Pike calls him in for a meeting, responds as best he can on two hours of sleep, but Pike can see through him and that bothers him in ways he hasn’t felt in years.

“You’re going to finish this year with excellent grades, Jim. Overall, you’ve done well—and it’s a far cry from the beat-up kid I found two years ago.”

“Thank you, sir,” he replies. There’s a stirring of pride in his tone that slips through and he’s tired, so tired.

“Now, care to tell me what’s on your mind?”

The question takes him off-guard and the tape peels away just a bit more, hanging on with nothing more than will and thread.

“Uh, nothing, sir—“

“You look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in at least a week, Kirk. What’s going on?”

He thinks of the nightmares, of the curled up body next to his own that was warm and human and breathing; he thinks, “all I’ve got left are my bones,” and shoots another hole in his heart.

Pike doesn’t look at him with pity or sympathy, just understanding, when Jim says, “The anniversary is coming up.”

(And he leaves eventually, starts for his dorm and heads the opposite way instead, and the door opens as if nothing has changed at all.)

-

It wasn’t the fall that made him weep, in retrospect, it was the way he was held for the first time in over six months because his mother had been out in space, and he could feel his heartbreak in ways the stairs could never accomplish but another human being could.

-

This is how it goes:

Jim wakes up one morning and stares up at the ceiling, counting one thousand and twelve ripples above him, and thinks of the infinite number of stars in space. He rolls over and secludes himself deeper into the nest of blankets that cocoon him; the smell is familiar and welcoming and he breathes it in. He’s not alone in the room, not at all, but Bones is sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table and his PADD in his hands. Jim tosses the blankets off him with regret and shuffles, half-asleep and smelling like faint whiskey, into the living area to plop himself down next to Bones. All that earns him is a morning smile that acknowledges Jim’s presence, but Bones’ eyes never leave the PADD, and Jim remembers that today is their first day of the third year. It’s six in the morning, his hair is tousled, his stomach growls.

“It’s been two days since we’ve been back on campus,” Bones finally says, shutting off the device in his hands and setting it on the table in front of him, “and you’ve already commandeered my bed.”

“What can I say?” Jim replies around a yawn, stretching out and dropping his head in Bones’ lap. “Your bed and I were meant to be.”

“My bed and I were doing quite fine without you, kid.”

“It likes me better.”

“You realize you take up ninety percent of the bed when you sleep, right?”

Jim shrugs, because he has realized this, has hacked his way into Bones’ dorm and draped himself over both sheets and body, and he’s a glutton for punishment so he doesn’t stay away even when he knows that this will blow up in his face later on. Bones rolls his eyes but there’s no real malice, only a hint of annoyance, and his fingers find their way to Jim’s skull. It’s awfully domestic, but Jim doesn’t think about that.

This is how it goes, leaving pieces of himself all over the place.

-

He comes back to their dorm (theirs, as if it always had been) with a bloody nose and probably a concussion, but this time he doesn’t bother to argue.

“I’m sober,” he adds at the look on Bones’ face. It’s sometime in the morning, probably, and the fight had been an accident, hadn’t been started by him, and he wants to sleep to outrun the pain that’s beginning to catch up with his adrenaline-drained body even as Bones pokes at his head. He slaps the hand away and trips face first into the welcoming embrace of the bed he’s come to learn he can’t live without.

“Jim,” he starts.

“It can wait until morning.”

“Not this time,” is the quiet answer, and god, his head really hurts, but he’s fine in all the ways it doesn’t matter and Bones is a doctor in all the ways it does, and that’s enough for him.

-

Jim says, “It can wait until morning,” but what he means is, “I need your help,” and Bones hears that as, “I’ll cooperate and then steal your bed for the night,” and really, that’s the raw taste of truth, and it’ll always be as clear as the night in Georgia.

-

Bones peels away the tape inch by inch until Jim’s chest is splayed wide open and broken ribs stick out in all directions, a bleeding heart pumping wildly to get free, and he unlocks the cage and puts it back together; the bleeding is staunched in tangled sheets smelling of sweat and sex; in feral hands scraping along flesh, a buildup of heat that explodes between fingertips. His (their) bed is stained with old wounds and twenty-first century stitching, but he knows that if he’s cut open, they’ll find blooming flowers and lush crops, bursting from the cage that houses poisoned lungs and a dying heart.

-

It wasn’t the fall that made him weep, because falling is the easy part; it’s landing with the broken bones and torn flesh that really causes pain, and the patchwork is messy and quick but there.

-

He tells him, “I love you, Jim,” and Jim falls in love with Bones the way he fell in love with the stars and the sheets—desperately, wonderfully, terrifyingly real.


End file.
